By CHRIS HENRY, KITSAP SUN

Published 10:00 pm, Sunday, April 13, 2008

PORT ORCHARD -- As Sunnyslope Elementary School fifth- and sixth-graders soon will be stuck inside taking the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, their minds may wander to the woods near their school.

Their teachers are hoping that's exactly what will happen.

In the week leading up to the WASL, more than 100 students took part in a Deep Forest Field School on South Kitsap School District land reserved for a future second high school.

The project is the brainchild of Sunnyslope librarian Barb Haddad, who pulled in local scientists to help.

Also involved was Jeremy Dahl, a scientist from Atlanta who came up with the concept and has been collaborating with Haddad.

The students learned how to identify rocks and trees. They learned the impact of litter on the environment. They learned about the role trees play in regulating the earth's temperature. Through it all, they used the math and science skills they've been learning at school, making, best of all, the abstract concepts of science classes suddenly seem real.

On Friday morning, a group of students followed Dave Peters of Kitsap County's Public Works recycling program into the forest. In another life, Peters earned a doctorate in zoology and published a thesis on trees.

Following Peters' instructions, the students noted tree varieties at regularly measured intervals to make an estimate of the makeup of the woods

After the exercise, Virginia Pierson, 11, a fifth-grader in Hilaree Zamberlin's class, said, "I really liked it because we learned more about trees. Some people just know that they grow around here. They don't even know their names. Now we know their names and how many grow here."

With the WASL's emphasis on real life learning, the Deep Forest project was just what the district is looking for in innovative ways to improve students' success.

"I think it's fantastic on a number of fronts," said Superintendent Bev Cheney, who stopped by to observe the students' fieldwork.

"They're relating what they're doing in the classroom to what they're doing out here. It's rigorous."

Cheney said the students benefit by seeing real life scientists at work and by forming relationships with professionals in the community outside of school.

The students took turns rotating through four stations. At Dahl's station, they studied light and temperature, and learned to use scientific instruments, including a photometer.

Shauna Abbenhaus, a Sunnyslope parent with a degree in geology, had students smashing rocks to see what was inside. The group found that the site was once part of a glacier.

Haddad led the litter group, which found, among other unmentionables, a filthy pillow, a tattered electric blanket, 16 packets of cold tablets and lots of plastic and aluminum, easily recyclable materials.

"Part of your job now as an aware environmental surveyor is for you to spread the message of what you've learned," Haddad said. "You can't just stand by and let it happen."